no absolute way. But look at the signs. lesions.. mostly about the head. bloating and dropsey. Wasteing away. Bad fin rot that moves very quick and into the flesh. If you look down the sides of your fish and see odd patches with a little fuzz look to it. ALL are symptoms.. treat for the obvious and if it fails consider the mycos. Or send to a lab. It took a lot to get the final diagnosis of the strain. And it was done for the number of fish I had. My local vet wanted $900 to work up 3 fish. I had 30 tested first, then another 24 I think. I will send more this summer to confirm it is gone. Not everyone is going to get that from a research facility. So keep this in the back of you mind as always a possibility..

Basement Bettas ~ Breeder of Show Bettas
Currently ranked first in 2013-2014 Season
Nationally ranked 3rd in point standings 2011-2012
Nationally ranked 5th in point standings 2012-2013
Regular contributor to Flare!
Co-Founder BettaSource

The link to my article with the references was deleted. No outside links I'm told. But I hope this one will be allowed. It took some searching to find products that will kill this stuff. My first attempt was not a good one. If it needs deleted.. sorry, just remove the link. But the EPA.gov site is where you need to go and dig if deleted.

These are products that will kill mycos. I'd recommend seeing your local vet or googling some of these online if you want to have a heavy duty disinfectant. Even if you just have an outbreak of velvet.. if you break down a tank, it is not a bad idea to hit it with something like this. And if you have the flu in your house you can use it on your stuff too. To kill mycos required the second highest kill level I think I remember reading. It will kill HIV virus.. that is how strong we are talking.

I let mine stand the 5 minutes wet it recommends then rinse with water. THen everything gets a good bleach dip to remove traces of the first spray.. then another good rinse and you are ready to go.

Basement Bettas ~ Breeder of Show Bettas
Currently ranked first in 2013-2014 Season
Nationally ranked 3rd in point standings 2011-2012
Nationally ranked 5th in point standings 2012-2013
Regular contributor to Flare!
Co-Founder BettaSource

When I sought out a researcher he located a local vet. He told me to see them and let him know what they told me. They could not even do a skin scrape and charged me $200. When I relayed that and the fact they wanted $900 he said to send fish to him. I got the initial result from their skin scraping. Then the did the finer testing and again said all fish had it all through the body,, in all organs. And it was recommended I talk to the leading researcher in the field to identify the strain as my symptoms were not lining up with what is out there on TB,. So he sent the referral to Dr Whipps and more fish were sent. There were some oddities like chin bumps that just were not typical presentations. It took a bit, but we finally, with dna, identified the strain. But I had already had the mycos diagnoses and was taking steps to get rid of it. When it returned we discovered the wrong chemical was used. Had I used the correct one I would not have had this last bunch with it again. I did not pay anyting but shipping for this.

It is not something they will do for anybody. With 500-1000 fish at any given time, I was almost like a research facility or commercial breeder. I am very thankful for their time and it has allowed me to tell others we have a serious problem. So it is now addressed and we are moving forward.. clean.

But the concern is with what I saw in local shops. One must use care when buying bettas as many come from the same facility. And I doubt they will destroy stock and decontaminate for bettas.

Basement Bettas ~ Breeder of Show Bettas
Currently ranked first in 2013-2014 Season
Nationally ranked 3rd in point standings 2011-2012
Nationally ranked 5th in point standings 2012-2013
Regular contributor to Flare!
Co-Founder BettaSource

Anyone interested in using a good disinfectant that will kill TB --
Look up MSDS sheets of products to see what they are proven to kill.

Bleach, if used right will work! You need to let MOST disinfectants sit on the product for ATLEAST 10 minutes to kill everything. It has to be soaked enough to be wet the entire ten minutes its being used or else it becomes inneffective.
Bleach in a 1-10 solution is hospital grade and is proven to kill HIV Hepatitis, TB, etc as well.

Another good one is Barbicide, commonly available at most Sally's beauty supply or online and is a great disinfectant to use. It'll kill HIV, TB, Hepatitis, etc. We use it as cosmetologists (the blue stuff for our shears), as we are required to use Hospital grade disinfectants. 10 minutes, surface soaked enough to stay wet the entire 10 minute duration.

Read manufacturer directions and it will tell you how long to leave it on and if you leave it less than that, you arent killing what you think you are!

EDIT:: Sorry, I didnt look at the link before I wrote this.
Everything still holds true, but the list definitely shows more options.

Something just occurred to me. The person who first positively identified this as mycobacterium, at least on the forum and on the mystery disease thread, was Coppermoon.

She got it from the same breeder I did. And she did not want to face the mycos when my diagnosis came back. I finally got her to send some fish and her diagnosis was not a surprise.. same symptoms. Got fish from same person.. at same time. And it wiped her out too. There are a few of us recovering from this. Everyone just though some crud resistant to drugs. We should have acted faster.

Basement Bettas ~ Breeder of Show Bettas
Currently ranked first in 2013-2014 Season
Nationally ranked 3rd in point standings 2011-2012
Nationally ranked 5th in point standings 2012-2013
Regular contributor to Flare!
Co-Founder BettaSource

Anyone interested in using a good disinfectant that will kill TB --
Look up MSDS sheets of products to see what they are proven to kill.

Bleach, if used right will work! You need to let MOST disinfectants sit on the product for ATLEAST 10 minutes to kill everything. It has to be soaked enough to be wet the entire ten minutes its being used or else it becomes inneffective.
Bleach in a 1-10 solution is hospital grade and is proven to kill HIV Hepatitis, TB, etc as well.

Another good one is Barbicide, commonly available at most Sally's beauty supply or online and is a great disinfectant to use. It'll kill HIV, TB, Hepatitis, etc. We use it as cosmetologists (the blue stuff for our shears), as we are required to use Hospital grade disinfectants. 10 minutes, surface soaked enough to stay wet the entire 10 minute duration.

Read manufacturer directions and it will tell you how long to leave it on and if you leave it less than that, you arent killing what you think you are!

Got to use a REAL high concentration for a long time. Remember I had it in my barracks running for TWO WEEKS and it still came back. Terminator triplex.. Isn't the exposure to bleach like an hour? And I'm going to check out sallys.. though I have a good product now.

Basement Bettas ~ Breeder of Show Bettas
Currently ranked first in 2013-2014 Season
Nationally ranked 3rd in point standings 2011-2012
Nationally ranked 5th in point standings 2012-2013
Regular contributor to Flare!
Co-Founder BettaSource

Got to use a REAL high concentration for a long time. Remember I had it in my barracks running for TWO WEEKS and it still came back. Terminator triplex.. Isn't the exposure to bleach like an hour? And I'm going to check out sallys.. though I have a good product now.

Barbicide is my favorite by far.
What we use at my shop is just regular grade clorox bleach. 1 cup/pedicure tub and OSHA and the State Cos board both say its good to use. 10 minutes in a pedicure tub and then another 10 minutes of plain water running.
We use barbicide for everything else besides laundry, which is 1 cup per load.
I dont know how it didnt work in your barracks. But this what we are required to do, and we are required to use the same disinfection procedures as a surgical suite in a hospital.

Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the Betta Fish and Betta Fish Care forums, you must first register.
Please enter your desired user name, your email address and other required details in the form below.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Email Address

Please enter a valid email address for yourself.

Email Address:

OR

Log-in

User Name

Password

Remember Me?

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.